


Reunited at last?

by fluffybookfaerie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 20:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybookfaerie/pseuds/fluffybookfaerie





	Reunited at last?

He’s hard to pick out at first. Dean instinctively scans for the tan trenchcoat, but of course he’s not wearing it anymore. Everything is different now. There’s a guy behind the cash register with his back to the store who has the right hair color, but that can’t be Cas, he’s standing too straight to be Cas. But when the guy turns around, it’s all Dean can do to remember to breathe because  _holy shit that’s him._

Cas hasn’t seen him yet. Dean hangs back, marveling over how _different_ Cas looks. He’s standing straighter—looking back, Dean would come to realize it was the absence of wings—and it makes a striking difference to his height. There’s a redness about his nose and cheeks, and again it doesn’t hit Dean immediately what it is—a sunburn—because the thing is so incompatible with his mental image of Cas; it’s too  _human_.

And there it is, the thing that only just became real to him. Cas is human. And he wears it damn well. There’s a strength to his movements as he rings up a customer’s purchase, a confidence that was never there before. Cas  _owns_  this body now. Dean is reminded of the day Dean’s hand-me-downs began to fit snugly on Sam instead of drowning him. 

A door behind Cas opens, and a woman comes through. She’s maybe Dean’s age, short and round  and pretty with dimples and bright eyes, and she smiles at Cas like he’s the freaking second coming or something, and Cas smiles back in a way that makes Dean’s breath rush out of his lungs because he  _wants_ that smile and he’s never, as far back as he can remember, gotten it.

That’s when Dean knows he has to leave. Cas has built a quiet, happy, _human_  life for himself and damned if Dean is going to burst in and shatter that with talk of monsters and fallen angels. It’s too late for Dean and Sam, but Cas has a shot at happiness and he deserves that.

It’s a long drive back to the bunker, and the loneliness makes it longer, but it’s a sacrifice Dean willingly gives. 

Once, Cas had come to Dean, ready to drag him into a war in heaven, but had left unnoticed because he’d seen the quiet life Dean had carved out for himself, and had believed that Dean would be happier without him.

They will never know how wrong they both are.


End file.
